EDUCATION

PAU students slog even during vacation
From Our Correspondent

LUDHIANA, June 16 — May it be a government holiday or vacation, activities do not come to a halt at Punjab Agricultural University. Even though the examination is over and grades have been marked for the second semester of the academic year 2000-01, one can spot some students on the campus.

Though today is the second day of the four-day government holiday, a few students were seen busy doing research in their laboratories. Some graduation students have gone for their village training and some post-graduation and Ph.D. students are in the process of giving the final touch to their thesis. Students from colleges are also making plans to go on a tour during the summer break which will begin on June 21.

Not only the students, but also some laboratory assistants are coming during this four-day break. Some advisers too turn up on the request of the students for their guidance.

Gurpreet Kaur and Shivani, both M.Sc. Botany students, "Since our experiments involve a daily collection of the data, we cannot afford to stay back even during the holidays. Sometimes we even have to go to our labs in the wee hours of the morning to note down morning readings."

Harmeet Singh, a B.Sc agriculture student, informed, "All students from my batch have to go to village training at Phalewal. So, we cannot afford to go home."

Suneeta, a first-year Ph.D. student from the department of Food and Nutrition, informed, "I decided to stay back in the hostel because I have to submit the rough synopsis of my research project. There are many B.Sc. students of my college who are staying in the hostel as they are supposed to go for the village training camp. Some others are attending the NSS camp. "

Harvinder, another Ph.D. student who is also a hostel inmate, told that almost half of the students are still on the campus. Mandeep, another hosteler, said, "Of the total 75 girls in my wing, 30-35 girls are still on the campus."

Not only now, but even when it comes to cultural festivals, the PAU students have been seen practising till the late hours of the night. However, this is certainly good for the cafeteria for its business never stops.

Discs which move children
From A Correspondent

LUDHIANA, June 16 — Computers and educational CDs are the modern teaching tools, though the conventional means of teaching like clay toys, blocks, charts and flash cards continue to be used extensively.

The demand for educational CDs is on the increase, mainly because these are audio-visual tools. These generally contain animations which facilitate a better understanding of the subject. This way, children can retain more of what is taught.

Video cassettes are in use since long, but, these generally have a poor print and a fast expiry. On the contrary, CDs have a better life span quality. These also have the advantage of a random access of the data. It is because of these facts that the sale of CDs has gone up.

Educational CDs are available for children of all ages. Most of these can be played only on computers. From a three-year-old child to adolescents, CDs on specialised subjects are available for all.

Even some of the nursery schools have begun using educational CDs as a medium of instruction. Ms Pritima Behl of Love Dale Montessori School says, "We have a computer room where children are shown CDs on nursery rhymes, animals, birds and conversation. They are then asked questions based on the visuals."

Mr Rajiv of Nirmal Computers who sells CDs, says, "CDs are available for students of UKG to Class X and their contents are as per the CBSE syllabus. Sale of CDs in private schools and coaching centres is high. Parents also come here to buy CDs for their kids."

Mr Upinder S. Ghai of Academic Book Depot, says, "Since most schools have computers, school authorities are keen to buy the latest educational CDs. Tough competition compels parents to buy computers and CDs for their kids."

Softwares on these CDs are self-explanatory and easily comprehensible, but, these cannot replace a teacher as these cannot answer students' queries.

Boom time for tuition centres
From Surbhi Bhalla

LUDHIANA, June 16 — Taking tuitions is the common refrain of a majority of students. Unlike the past, today private tuitions for school-goers is a big business. The tuition industry battens on the deteriorating teaching standards in schools. Intensifying competitions where anything less than 90 per cent marks is not enough and parents who are too busy or not qualified to help with the homework are the major causes for tuitions.

Special subject tutors, tuition bureaus, school teachers, who look for an additional income, housewives, who want to earn pocket money by engaging themselves in a part-time job, government servants supplementing their salary and university students working their way through college provide a comprehensive back-up to classroom teaching. They assure promotions at anything from Rs 400 to Rs 1,000 per month.

It is boom time for all the tuition homes in Ludhiana. Each ''teaching shop'' lists a unique feature and gives assurance of sure success and students lap it up in spite of the charges which vary. In this age of competition, one is as good as one's qualifications. Hence the mad rush for tuitions.

What is the magic that tuitions or tutors work with the children? Is it only because tuition is an ''in-thing'' these days? No, with a capital NO, says a school teacher, Mrs Amita Bajaj. She tutors five children every evening at home. According to her, what the most students need and tuitions provide is the time with their books. Tuitions help the child to be regular with his studies. Of course, tutors also explain what the child does not follow. What helps the most is the ''repetition'' which tuitions ensure, she adds.

Expectations of parents have gone up. Most parents believe that the teaching at school is not thorough. Hence the need for tuitions . Parents have no other way, says Mrs Maninder Pal Singh. No parent wants their child to lag behind, so they hire tutors at any cost. But tuition can give school children the right help at the right time so they do not slip too far back. They should not lose all initiative to pick up again, says Mrs Parveen, a school teacher.

A few years ago, the trend was different. Parents got a tutor for a child if he had not been promoted to the next higher class. Today the name of tuition does not stigmatise below average children.

That these shops have succeeded in hyping the tuition mania can be gauged from the serpentine queues witnessed outside the registration centres of such shops. Some of them offer rich study material which helps the student to deal with the complex subjects in an easy and informal way.

Lucrative as it is, giving tuitions is a highly responsible job. Teachers in Ludhiana are highly involved in tuition business. A school teacher who pockets Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 per month from his job earns three times more from tuitions.

They have started involving themselves and investing in aggressive advertising and marketing strategies, even to the extent of hoardings and neon signs. Downmarket tutors advertise their services with newspaper advertising.

Today we can see parents instructing their children to have tuitions. With such high returns of income, parents are heard telling their children: ''Beta, study well; I will put you in the tuition business.''

The season of school admissions

Apart from summer, rain, winter and spring, there comes a season which is known as the season of school admissions. Usually, it starts from mid-February. If you are even slightly related with any of the premium teaching institutions of the city, your telephone will not stop ringing in this season. You suddenly become a favourite. Even grandparents of infants worry and make plans for the admission which is yet to take place after three or four years.

In the city of Ludhiana, where everybody is a somebody, it is also a season when people try to be establish friendship with schoolteachers or with persons who are members of the management committee of any school. The sole purpose of this pursuit of revival is to find a dependable sifarish for the admission of their ward.

Anxious parents or relatives of the child scramble to read the notice boards as shouts of 'ho gaya' (got selected) is the most common phrase heard that day. Their faces become jubilant as if they have won a big war.

The admission mania reaches its crescendo when results of interviews are displayed at the entrance gates of the schools.

The plight of those parents whose ward's name is not in that list is seen to be believed. Males silently leave the premises, cursing the school authorities and also suspecting some foul play in the selection process whereas some women are seen wiping their tears.

Sometimes, this madness or craze for a few schools of Sarabha Nagar or Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar bring back memories of my own childhood. I remember a few glimpses of my first day in school. It was a desi school situated near Daresi Ground in the old city where we used to sit on long jute carpets which were called tapparh. My father soon left for his shop and I don't remember any other day when he ever again came to our school.

Some more than a decade later when I made into a professional college at Patiala, my parents were as relaxed as they were on my first day to the school. Today, my son is studying in plus one in one of these 'most wanted' schools and whenever the season of admissions comes, I silently wonder how the times have changed. While busy arranging my son's hectic schedule of tuitions after his school hours, my telephone rings. It is one of my old acquaintances making an enquiry. He wants to know whether I have some wakfiat with the principal of a particular school as his son couldn't get admissions there.

— Dr R. Vatsyayan

HEALTH

Hope for oesophageal cancer patients
From Vimal Sumbly
Tribune News Service

LUDHIANA, June 16 — With each passing day, Pritam Singh was getting worried and desperate and so were persons around him. Despite a deep urge for food due to starvation, he could not take it. He was suffering from oesophageal carcinoma, commonly known as oesophageal cancer. It looked like the countdown to the end had begun for this man in his mid seventies. He had lost all hopes of survival. Now, with the advent of the latest oesophageal stent system, his life has again become pleasant. Now, he can take all the food he wants.

Thanks to the oesophageal stent, thousands of patients of this disease can now hope to survive. Dr Harnish S. Bindra, a senior gastroenterology and oncology consultant in Mohan Dai Memorial Hospital is the first to introduce this procedure in Ludhiana, rather in Punjab. He has "deployed" oesophageal stents inside many patients of oesophageal carcinoma with good results.

Oesophageal stent is a small spiral-shaped alloy tube developed specially by an American company. The composition of the alloy is not disclosed. Despite being a foreign body, it does not have any harmful side effects on the patient. It is deployed in the oesophagus of the patient by an endoscope. The procedure takes only about 20 minutes. This is performed without administering any anaesthesia. The patient can take any food instantly. However, Dr Bindra advises patients to take liquid food first.

Pritam Singh was suffering from oesophageal carcinoma for past six months and he got well within 20 minutes. Pritam Singh could not believe that he could gulp one litre of milk immediately after the operation. He told The Tribune after the operation that everybody had rejected him as his disease was supposed to be incurable. It was a miracle for him. "From now onwards, I have started believing in miracles," he said.

According to Dr Bindra, the number of patients suffering from the disease is increasing at an alarming rate. He said on an average, 150 patients consulted him every year. "I used to feel sorry for such patients when they got hungry, but, could not eat. However, they need not lose hope or feel desperate now," Dr Bindra said.

This disease is common among rural persons, particularly the poor. Their food habits, smoking and drinking are mainly responsible for this disease. Dr Bindra said persons who smoked and consumed liquor were ten times more likely to get the disease than the rest.

The "deployment" costs about Rs 25,000, which is only the cost of the stent. Dr Bindra performs the procedure free of cost. He said, in the procedure, first the blocked oesophagus is dilated with the help of a balloon. Subsequently, the stent is placed into it with the help of an endoscope. The stent then opens up along the oesophagus, creating a permanent opening through which food can pass through easily.